


Lakes

by sidnihoudini



Series: Lost in the Plot [2]
Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Rescue, Sad Richie Tozier, Temporary Character Death, The House on 28 Neibolt Street (IT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 00:37:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: Ben holds Bev’s hand as they walk. Richie feels sick with grief, staggering along behind them, carrying Eddie’s dead, heavy body on his back.





	Lakes

**Author's Note:**

> It makes sense to read [Roads](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007991) before this, but you don't have to.
> 
> I don't know what's happening. I haven't written this much this quickly in YEAHS.

It doesn’t make sense when Eddie stops breathing.

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey,” Richie says quietly, gathering the upper half of Eddie’s body up in his arms; Eddie flops forward, face slack against Richie’s shoulder. “You’re fine. Hey, Eddie. We need to get out of here.”

They’re on the floor in the cave, and Eddie only leans back against the cold wall when Richie lets go of him.

“Eddie, hey,” he keeps saying, but Eddie doesn’t say anything back.

That’s when Richie feels himself start to panic. He tightens his arms up around Eddie’s shoulders, and presses his face to Eddie’s jaw. It’s cold and bloody. Nothing is how it was back in the hotel room, at all.

Richie tries to take a deep breath. He tries to get his head on right.

This isn’t happening to him.

He turns to look back over one shoulder, goes to ask for help, and sees the other four have surrounded Pennywise near its nest.

A burst of adrenaline floods though him; he’s going to kill that fucking bitch.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises Eddie, pressing a quick kiss to the side of Eddie’s face. He takes Eddie’s lifeless hand, repositions it to hold Richie’s jacket against his stomach, and stands up.

Then he stalks over to where Pennywise is laying on the ground, with the Losers circling around him. Richie steals its arm right out of its socket, and stabs it with its own claw.

The other four watch, and then join in on reading Pennywise to the grave, but for Richie, it’s all a blur. He’s running on pure cortisol and the adrenaline of seeing Eddie impaled on that claw. If he woke up from this nightmare, he’d get out of bed and punch a hole in the wall just to cope.

Pennywise dies, and everything begins to float.

Richie is the first one to get back to Eddie. When he turns around to look at the group, and say _see, guys, he’s right here, right where I left him,_ a small, scared voice in the back of Richie’s head interrupts. _He’s dead, Richie. He’s dead and everyone else knows it except you._

Eddie’s eyes are open and his skin is cold. Richie presses his jacket to his stomach again, because there’s so much blood. How does one little person have so much blood?

“Richie, honey,” Bev says from behind him.

Richie fixes Eddie’s hair and smiles over his shoulder. “He’s fine, we just have to get him out of here.”

“Richie, I don’t-”

“We need to get out of here and call an ambulance, and that’s all,” Richie tells her, because that’s what hospitals are for, right? He sounds firm when he says it. “They can fix him, Bev.”

They lock eyes, and Richie raises his eyebrows. _See?_

She should understand what he’s saying, because they’ve always done this; the shared looks, catching each other’s eye from across the room to telepathically laugh or groan. It started when they were teenagers, when they smoked together. Eddie hated it, and Ben pretended to like it, and Richie and Bev always thought that was dreamy.

“What if it was him?” Richie asks her, and she starts to cry.

Then the cave rumbles. The walls start to shake, and pieces of rock fall from the sky.

It’s Mike who pulls Richie back. He says, “Richie, this place is coming down,” and, “We have to go,” and, “He’d want us to live, Richie.”

Richie shakes his head, and everything happens so fast that it’s only then that he realizes he’s crying, really crying this time, and holding onto Eddie in a death grip. The front of his shirt is soaked with blood from moving Eddie around so much, from grabbing him desperately, from positioning his arms and holding his head at an angle that makes it look like he’s still alive.

“R-Richie, we- we better g-go,” Bill says worriedly, and then they’re tearing Richie away from Eddie’s body.

Richie fights back. He’s bigger than all of them, and the only one who could probably take him in a wrestling match is Mike. He kicks his legs and tries to drop his weight, but the four of them wrangle him like he’s a child. Like they’re kids again.

They almost have him through the entrance of the cave when Richie has a sudden moment of clarity, and sees Eddie through all of the dust and the rubble falling up to the sky.

Eddie is laying on the floor, awkwardly propped up against the cave wall. He’s still holding Richie’s jacket with both hands against his wound.

Suddenly memories of last night flood through him like cold water. _Get your clothes cleaned, and I’ll start taking care of them, too._ The punctuated “asshole” had been implied. Richie is so caught up in the memory for a split second, motionless, that the rest of the Losers manage to drag Richie a few feet back. Almost all the way through the mouth of the cave.

Almost. And then Richie feels himself snap.

He violently throws his weight forward, and the sudden change obviously catches the other four off guard, because Richie goes flying and lands against the cave floor on his hands and his knees. He scrambles to his feet and begins to run, dodging falling shrapnel, and coughing, trying to cover his mouth with his forearm as the dust really begins to rise.

When he gets back to Eddie’s body, the rock walls have begun to vibrate. Richie has a split second to think _wow, that’s scary_ before he scrambles, trying to sort Eddie’s limbs out, and for a split second it seems impossible. For one tiny, split second, Richie considers laying down, holding Eddie’s hand, and waiting for the rocks to fall.

“We’re not dying in these fucking sewers,” he snaps at himself, pushing his glasses up, and then picking Eddie up with one arm under his shoulders, and the other under his knees.

Honestly, it’s a struggle to get from his knees back to his feet. When a rock falls out of the sky and hits Richie on the shoulder, he skews to the side, swears, and almost drops Eddie back to the ground. If they get out of here, Richie is going to get a gym membership, on the very slim off-chance this happens again.

He staggers towards the cave entrance with Eddie in his arms, and it feels impossible. He’s scared the whole time, waiting for something to get them - for Pennywise to come back to life, for another monster to drop out of the sky. For a novelty sized boulder to roll down the hallway and smoosh them to jam like a cartoon.

But Richie puts one foot in front of the other. And soon they’re at the spot where Richie tore away from the rest of the group.

It’s harder to see and navigate where they’re going the more everything starts to fall down around them, and it’s even more impossible because Richie can’t stop to wipe his face off with Eddie’s body in his arms, but he staggers through the cave, and heaves Eddie over his shoulder to climb the sewer ladder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasps the entire time, completely out of breath, banging Eddie’s head against the wall the whole way up.

At the top of the ladder, Richie’s adrenaline starts to flag.

He hoists Eddie’s weight up and staggers forward into the sewer water. This is familiar, he thinks, one arm looped around Eddie’s leg, and the other around Eddie’s arm, balancing him on his shoulders. He’s been able to find his way out of the sewers in all his nightmares.

They’re in the hallway at Neibolt when the house starts coming down around them. Richie doesn’t even have to get the door open for them to be outside.

He comes to a dead stop, hacking, out of breath, on the concrete stoop.

The other four are on the sidewalk in front of the house, and when they see him standing there, it clearly takes a minute for each of them to realize that Richie is still alive.

“We thought you were on a suicide mission,” Mike says, and Richie screws his whole face up, his body is in so much pain. The only reason he’s still on his feet is adrenaline and fear.

Bev is touching Eddie, walking alongside Richie as he staggers a few steps out onto the street. She’s still crying, and saying, “Oh, Eddie. Oh, Eddie.”

“There’s so much blood, Bev,” Richie manages, and then falls to his knees in the middle of the street. He goes down first, and Eddie’s body lands on top of him, but that’s fine, Richie thinks, and he’s crying again, gasping hysterically. He bundles Eddie’s wet, dead body into his lap, and squeezes his eyes closed.

And then he sits there, holding onto Eddie for as long as he can.

“We- we need to call s-someone,” Bill is saying, repeating, stuck on a loop, and Richie’s eyes are still closed, but he can picture it, Bill pacing up and down the sidewalk, both hands in his hair, eyes all bugged out as he looked around, waiting for Mike to back him up.

Ben kneels down beside him, and gently, carefully touches Richie’s shoulder.

“Richie,” he says, but Richie doesn’t look up; he doesn’t want to hear it. “We need to call someone to help us, now.”

He feels Bev’s hands on his arms, trying to loosen his grip on Eddie.

“Nope.” He shakes his head, and when he moves his face just right, he can feel Eddie’s ear and jaw bone against his cheek. Then he really, truly snaps, and starts laughing. He laughs hysterically, until it sounds like he’s crying, and then his eyes pop open and he was right. Ben and Bev are standing around him, watching sadly. “I can’t. I can’t, guys. I.. I…”

This is it, he thinks to himself. Someone is going to have to tear him away.

“It’s okay, Richie,” Bev says quietly, and brushes his hair back off of his forehead.

That makes him cry more. It’s not okay.

Eddie is dead.

*

Everyone’s phone is wet or missing.

Richie is secretly relieved.

He carries Eddie on his back, away from Neibolt, into the woods, across the quarry, and to the lake. He cries off and on, especially when he sees Eddie’s foot bobbing along in his peripheral vision, and remembers carrying his shoes across the river that morning.

Ben holds Bev’s hand as they walk. Richie feels sick with grief, staggering along behind them, carrying Eddie’s dead, heavy body on his back.

At the lake, the others go into the water. Bev sits with Richie and Eddie at the shore.

Richie holds Eddie to his chest. While they were walking away from Neibolt, Bev gently stopped Richie from walking so she could close Eddie’s eyes. Now Eddie just looks like he’s asleep, if Richie pretends not to notice the color of his skin, and how stiff his hands are.

“I’m sorry for that,” Bev says quietly, as they stare out at the lake, where the other three are washing themselves in the water. Richie doesn’t know what she means. “We weren’t thinking, Richie. We just wanted you to be safe.”

Richie rests his cheek on Eddie’s head. His hair is full of blood. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Here.” Bev reaches over, and at first Richie has a kneejerk reaction, he tightens his grip around Eddie’s body, but then she gives him a soft smile, and gently pulls his glasses from his face. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to clean these in the lake.”

He nods, and closes his eyes, and crumples over, leaning even harder on Eddie.

Stupid Richie Tozier, he thinks, always in love with the unattainable. First his childhood friend, then a long lost memory, and now a dead man. He kisses the side of Eddie’s face again, and it’s a little bit warmer, now that they’re in the sun, and not the sewers. 

Bev comes back less than five minutes later. She says, “Richie, look.”

Richie picks up his head and opens his eyes. She still has his dirty glasses in one hand, but she shows him the other one. Her palm.

“It’s gone,” is all she says, laughing a little bit, like she can’t believe it.

At first Richie doesn’t know what she means, but then it hits him like a punch. He yanks his hand out from where he’d had it twisted in the back of Eddie’s shirt, and wipes his palm off on the dirty, wet knee of his jeans. His hand is still streaked with mud and blood, but it’s pretty clear.

His scar is gone.

“What the fuck,” he manages, reaching out for his glasses. 

Bev gives them to him, and he shakily puts them back on his face before rearranging Eddie’s body, his arms, tugging his hands out from where they had been safely tucked against Richie’s chest. Right away, Richie sees the difference. Eddie’s hand is still cold, but his skin is no longer a sick, swollen blue. Some color is starting to come back.

He flips Eddie’s hand over, and smooths his thumb across Eddie’s palm.

“Bev.” His voice is alarmed, serious. “Eddie’s is gone, too.”

Bev moves closer, reaching for Eddie’s hand, but still sounds sad as she says, “Richie…”

“No, I’m serious,” Richie breathes, and all of a sudden, the life floods back into him. He sees the sharp glint of hope and he grabs it. He tugs up Eddie’s sleeves, and his wrists are warmer, his veins have shape to them again. His muscles are softer.

He scrambles forward, and carefully lays Eddie out in the warm dirt.

“Help me,” he tells Bev, brushing the dirt and dust out of Eddie’s clothes. 

She moves onto her knees and takes one of Eddie’s hands in hers, like Richie did, thumbs rubbing in opposite directions on his palm. Richie knows the second she believes it, too. Her gaze snaps up, and they share a look over Eddie’s body in the sand.

As she holds his hand, Richie checks over the rest of Eddie’s body. His legs are less swollen and stiff, and when Richie tries to bend Eddie’s leg up, his knee works.

He tugs the belly of Eddie’s shirt up, and it’s stuck to his skin, cakey with blood from the claw.

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Richie says. The wound in his torso is gone. Eddie’s insides are no longer spilling outside. He smooths one hand over Eddie’s belly. _You look like newborn Steve Rogers._ When Bev doesn’t immediately reply, he snaps, “Now, Bev. Hurry up. Tell everyone we’re leaving.”

Bev, stunned, nods and starts getting back to her feet.

“Everything that happened down there is being reversed,” Richie calls to her, as she runs to the lake. It’s the only thing that makes sense. “Breaking Pennywise’s heart turned it all back.”

*

The ambulance picks them up at the pay phone near the barrens.

“We’ll meet you there,” Ben promises, as Richie ducks into the back, trying not to hit his head or get in the way of the paramedics. “See you soon.”

By the time they get to the hospital, Eddie has a weak pulse. A team of people in scrubs meet them at the ambulance bank, and it all happens so fast, Richie gets left behind as they descend on Eddie’s body, transferring him to a bed, putting an oxygen mask on his face, tubes and sticky pads and everything Richie remembers from watching bad medical shows on TV.

Richie has a panic attack by himself just inside the emergency entrance doors. He paces in a very small line, back and forth, with his hands in his hair, until a nurse approaches him.

“You’re here with Eddie Kaspbrak?” she asks.

He nods, hands shaking, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.”

“Is there anyone we can call for you? Or for Eddie?”

“No, no. It’s just me and him.” Richie blanks. “It’s just us until our friends get here.”

The nurse gives him a set of light blue scrubs and a thick wedge of wet wipes to clean up with, and directs him to the emergency waiting room. In a haze, Richie staggers over to one of the plastic chairs, and falls into it. The scrubs fall on the floor.

He’s staring into space and scaring the kid with the sniffles across from him when everyone else arrives.

Bev spots him right away.

“What’s happening?” she asks, two paces ahead of everyone else.

He shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders and then he’s crying again. “I don’t know. He has a heartbeat, but I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Richie,” Ben says, standing beside him and rubbing his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

*

Bev helps him go into the women’s bathroom and change into the scrubs.

He stuffs his bloody, dirty clothes into the wall-mounted garbage meant for paper towels, and stands in front of the sink, trying to clean the shit off his arms.

“He would be so proud of you,” Bev tells him, watching Richie’s reflection in the mirror.

Richie shakes his head and scrubs at his skin.

*

A different nurse comes to get him about an hour later.

“Richie?” she asks, standing by the in-take station with a clipboard in one hand.

His stomach flips and he stands up without a second thought.

“That’s me.” His voice is rough now, from sitting silently, in shock, not saying anything as he listened to the others talk quietly around him. They were changing flights, extending stays, taking a few more days off. “I’m Richie.”

The nurse gives him a soft smile, and at first, Richie’s mind fills in the blanks, and he thinks _this is it. She’s going to tell me he’s dead._

“Eddie is stable,” is the first thing she says. Richie’s blood pressure drops so fast he feels faint; his peripheral vision goes fuzzy and black. “He’s beat up, but he’s doing okay.”

Richie grabs at his chest, and babbles, “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“The on-call doctor does want to ask you some questions about his accident,” the nurse continues, looking up at Richie’s face. “His body took a lot of trauma in a very short amount of time.”

That makes tears spring back to Richie’s eyes. “I know. I know he did.”

“The attending will come out to talk to you in a few minutes, and she’ll be able to answer any questions for you,” the nurse continues, voice going softer. “Once you talk to them, you can see Eddie. He’s not awake yet, but he’s comfortable.” Then she pauses, seems to recalibrate, and adds, “In the meantime, you may want to get yourself a check-up.” She points to her own face.

Richie can only imagine what he looks like. He nods, accepts the tissue she gives him, and sits back down beside Bev.

*

Two hours later, Richie is allowed to see Eddie in his room.

He’s met the on-call doctor, and he doesn’t have any broken bones, but he does have a new prescription for Xanax. He cracks the lid off and pops one dry the second he gets the bottle. 

The rest of the Losers stay in the waiting area, because Eddie’s still touch and go, so no crowds, no one to get in the way of anyone who has to come and save his life if he starts dying again. Richie gets it. Richie understands.

He walks across the small, white room and climbs right into bed beside Eddie.

Eddie’s full of wires and tubes, but Richie navigates around them carefully. He fits in just fine between the edge of the bed and the side of Eddie’s beat-up body. He rests one leg over Eddie’s, hugs him around the middle, and passes out. 

*

That night, Bev goes back to the Townhouse for him.

She charges Richie’s phone and brings him back a change of his own clothes.

*

The sun is stretching all the way across Eddie’s floor when Myra arrives the next day.

Richie hears her at the nurse’s station outside the door. He’s been dozing all day, but he figured she would come eventually. She must have found out through the insurance company. There’s arguing; Richie hears Mike get involved at one point. The nurses go from calling her “ma’am” to “Mrs. Kaspbrak” and it only takes about half an hour.

“EDDIE BEAR,” Myra cries from the doorway.

Richie closes his eyes and leaves his face where it is, pressed to the back of Eddie’s shoulder. It’s the best place to feel him breathe.

“Mrs. Kaspbrak,” the nurse says. “He can’t hear you yet, I’m sorry.”

Then Myra is silent. She must have finally seen him, stretched out on her husband’s bed, with his long stupid legs over as much of Eddie as he could get them. Richie leaves his eyes closed. He takes a deep breath in. 

He presses his hand against Eddie’s chest, where it’s been resting over where Pennywise stabbed through him with a claw.

“You should call security,” Richie finally tells her. His voice is raw.

Myra is quiet for a very long minute. And then she asks, “Who are you? What are you doing?”

She walks deeper into the room; Richie hears her feet on the hospital floor, and sees her shadows on the inside of his eyelids.

He nudges his face against Eddie’s shoulder.

“I’m Richie Tozier,” he tells her. “And you’re going to have to get security to remove me.”

*

She does.

Richie knew she would.

He staggers along outside Eddie’s room with a security guard walking behind him.

Halfway down the hallway, Richie’s body ceases to continue moving forward. He doesn’t make the decision, but all of a sudden he’s hanging there, and his legs aren’t working. The nurses look at him compassionately; they can’t say anything, but Richie sees it in their faces.

“Come on, man,” the security guard says, ghosting around Richie’s personal space.

Richie resumes walking, expression pained, chest tight.

Myra is arguing with a nurse and a second security officer in Eddie’s room. The other Losers are all back at the hotel; they went to sleep, nothing was supposed to happen. Richie was supposed to lay beside Eddie’s body until he woke up.

With Myra here, and Richie all alone, he wonders if he should even put up a fight.

He sits in the waiting room for a while. The nurses talk to security, and then security leaves without hassling him. Richie sits with his face in his hands for a very long time.

“The cafeteria is open,” a nurse comes over to tell him. She squats down so they’re at eye level, touches Richie’s leg, and looks into Richie’s face kindly. “Go and eat. We’ll watch him for you.”

Richie’s eyes well up with tears. He nods, and wipes his face, and stands up.

*

The next two weeks are hard.

Eddie is still asleep. Richie doesn’t know what the details are, because Myra won’t tell him anything, and the staff aren’t allowed to tell him. Myra has a schedule that she sticks to, she rolls into the ward after lunch, and leaves before dinner every day. Richie sits in the waiting room, a mess, the whole time.

His gym bag is still with Eddie’s two pieces of luggage in the empty room at the Townhouse.

At first, all four of the other Losers stay at the hospital with Richie every day. And then Bill has to leave for work, because the studio starts blowing up his phone and threatening legal action.

Mike says he’s going to drive Bill to the airport, but then he doesn’t come back.

Ben and Bev leave last. They stick out almost the whole two weeks, but then there’s no news coming from anywhere for a very long time, and what are they supposed to do? Babysit Richie in the waiting room and pet his hair forever?

Richie gets it. If he and Eddie had the chance, he would leave too.

They almost did.

Bev makes him promise he’ll call them as soon as Eddie wakes up. Richie gives her a pained smile and a promise to do exactly that, and then they all hug at the entrance of the hospital.

It’s in the waiting room at 2AM the next night that one of the nurses on shift spots Richie alone, and comes over to him.

“I can’t give you any news.” She sits down on the squeaky chair beside his. Richie half-smiles at her, because he knows, and it’s kind of her to say it at all. She looks at him pointedly. “He’s in the same room.” And he hears it, hears it without really parsing the words, or understanding what she means. “You remember.” Then the hook catches something in his brain, and he jerks up, staring. “Down the hall. On the left.”

Richie is already getting up off the seat. “Yeah, of course. Of course. Thank you.”

He practically runs across the waiting room and down the hall to where the patient rooms are. As he passes by the nurse’s desk, he notices that the one nurse sitting at the computer pointedly turns her chair around in perfect synchronization to him running past her.

Eddie is exactly where Richie left him.

“Fuck,” Richie whispers, and then he’s crying again. He hurries across the room and crawls back into bed, sliding around until he’s laid along Eddie’s side.

There are less tubes and wires; Richie doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

Eddie doesn’t smell like himself anymore. Just hospital soap and the sweet smell of industrially sterilized sheets. Richie doesn’t care. He hugs Eddie so tight he actually squeezes some breath out.

*

Richie starts leaving during the day, because the nurses let him in at night.

He doesn’t always sleep in Eddie’s hospital bed, but he usually does. He always touches Eddie somehow, holding his hand, squeezing his foot under the blankets. All of him is still there, and sometimes Richie gets the compulsion to check, and he does.

It reminds him of when they were kids. Dodging Eddie’s mom, crawling in through bedroom windows and playing video games on a buzzy analog TV until the sun came up.

On the fifth night of being secretly let into Eddie’s room, Richie breaks down and hugs one of the nurses on his way out into the early morning twilight. He sobs into her shoulder because now that he remembers, he misses it all.

She pats his back; the whole floor has clearly developed a soft spot for their sad gay love.

Normally Richie would make at least a dozen jokes about that.

Lately, he doesn’t remember how.

*

It takes three more weeks after that for Eddie to wake up.

Richie isn’t there when it happens.

He’s in the coffee shop down the street when he gets the call. His depressed, tiny kingdom has been slowly expanding, and now he spends his days in various places around Derry. So far that includes Eddie’s hotel room, the hospital cafeteria, and this coffee shop.

“Hello, is this Richie Tozier?” the voice asks, and Richie has to pull it away from his face to double check the caller ID. It does say DRRY HSPTL.

Richie stares out at the street through the window. He’s been spending so much time by himself that his voice sounds alien and weird when it finally comes out. 

“Yeah,” he manages, pushing his fingers under his glasses, grimacing and squeezing the bridge of his nose. “That’s me.”

Her voice is clear, professional. She says, “Hi, Mr. Tozier,” like she makes calls on the phone all day and doesn’t sit in various places and visit her secret, in a coma love interest at night. “This is Kelly calling from Derry Hospital.” Richie squeezes his eyes again. “Eddie Kaspbrak is awake and asking for you.”

Adrenaline goes zinging through his body in four different directions.

“FUCK,” is what he blurts outloud, alarming literally everyone sitting around him. He covers his mouth, makes awkward eye contact with another customer, and starts bumbling around, trying to get up from his table. “Sorry,” he manages. He bangs into it and spills coffee everywhere. Into the phone, he says, “Eddie, he’s-”

“He’s alert, and he’s asking for you,” the woman reiterates.

Richie pushes the door open with his elbow.

“I’ll be right there,” he tells her, out of breath. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

*

The elevator dings, the door opens, and Richie steps out onto Eddie’s floor.

It’s chaos. Already he can see Myra standing at the nurse’s station, fighting with one of the day shift nurses who does the 7AM to 7PM shift. Sometimes Richie bumps into her on his way out in the morning, but not very often.

He’s in a daze as he walks down the hall to Eddie’s room. He leaves Myra where she is, and continues, eyes wide, around the corner to Eddie’s door.

It’s open, and Eddie is right there, awake, in bed.

He’s coughing and hacking and repeatedly dinging his emergency call button.

“There you are,” Eddie says. His voice sounds rough and dry and sore.

Richie beelines across the room. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Eddie, and he doesn’t stop until he’s hunched over the side of Eddie’s bed, practically bent in half, and holding Eddie’s face in his hands. He kisses Eddie solidly, nose smooshed against his cheek, and then again, one more time.

“You scared the fucking shit out of me,” Richie says. They barely pull away from each other. “I was getting ready to jump off a fucking bridge without you.”

Eddie looks pale and shaky and fatigued. But he still leans back against the pillows and looks up at Richie. Richie holds his hand very tightly.

“Don’t die, remember?” he asks, and yeah.

Richie remembers that.

**Author's Note:**

> I usually don’t condone demonizing the wives in gay pairings, but Myra was supposed to be like Eddie’s mom, so there she is.
> 
> I'm on tumblr [@sidnihoudini](http://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com), and I DO have ideas for another part. So maybe see you soon.


End file.
